arXiv subjects

Zhi Tao

Publications and source records attributed to Zhi Tao.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

UniTac: A Unified Multimodal Model for Cross-Sensor Tactile Understanding and Generation

Unified multimodal models (UMMs) have shown great promise in integrating understanding and generation across diverse modalities. However, existing research rarely extends this paradigm to the tactile domain, where both object-level semantics and sensor-level configurations jointly determine the meaning of touch. To address this gap, we propose UniTac, the first UMM designed for tactile understanding and generation. UniTac models the tactile process as a transition from non-contact to contact, capturing the physical interaction between sensors and objects through a dual-level representation that encodes both sensor and object attributes. For tactile understanding, UniTac introduces two tasks, object property description and sensor identification, to enhance reasoning over physical and cross-sensor information. For tactile generation, we design a two-stage training paradigm consisting of reconstruction and alignment, together with a sensor-prior-based sampling strategy that simulates realistic tactile contact. Trained on large-scale multi-sensor datasets, UniTac achieves state-of-the-art performance in tactile understanding and generates realistic tactile signals across sensors.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2026

A Wall Function for Turbulent Boundary Layers under Rotation via Symbolic Regression

This study employs symbolic regression to derive physically interpretable, white-box wall-function expressions for turbulent boundary layers under system rotation. Flows in a rotating frame are subject to Coriolis forces, which deflect the boundary layer profile from static case. The classical law of the wall, formulated under non-rotating conditions, is ill-suited to describing the effects of rotation. To obtain the wall function under rotation, we examine the deflection behavior of the turbulent boundary layers on the leading and trailing sides, and construct wall functions that are valid over a wide range of rotation numbers. The analytical expressions show that, as the rotation effect intensifies, the boundary layer on the leading side contracts whereas that on the trailing side expands, and the leading side exhibits a tendency towards relaminarization, consistent with high-fidelity numerical results. The resulting symbolic expressions are compact and interpretable. The wall functions obtained in this study complement conventional wall functions, and provide a new avenue for turbulence model closure subject to system rotation.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Sound Wave Manipulation Based on Valley Acoustic Interferometers

Topological acoustics provides new opportunities for materials with unprecedented functions. In this work, we report a design of topological valley acoustic interferometers by Y-shaped valley sonic crystals. By tight-bounding calculation and experimental demonstration, we successfully tune the acoustic energy partition rate by configuring the channel. An analytical theory proposed to explain the transmission property matches well with experimental observations. An additional π Berry phase is verified to accumulate circling along the shape-independent topological valley acoustic interferometer, unique in the pseudospin half systems. Based on the spectral oscillation originating from the accumulated dynamic phase and π Berry phase, a simplified method to measure acoustic valley interface dispersion is explored, which overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional fast Fourier transform method and improves the measuring efficiency by simply analyzing the peaks and dips of the measured transmission spectrum. Moreover, an effective approach to tuning its transmissions, as well as the spectral line shapes proposed and realized by the local geometry design of the interferometer, exhibits strong tunability under an unchanged physical mechanism. Our work opens an avenue to design future acoustic devices with the function of sound wave manipulation based on the physical mechanism of interference and Berry phase.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2023

Study of the Effect of a Novel Dimensionless Parameter -- the Centrifugal Work Number(CW), on Spanwise Rotating channel Low-speed Compressible Flow

In the study of rotating channel flow, the key dimensionless parameters typically include the Reynolds number, rotation number, Prandtl number and buoyancy number. Our research focused on comparing the flow characteristics between the enlarged model, analyzed under the rotating similarity theory, and the original channel flow. Significantly different flow behaviors were observed between these two cases. Through theoretical derivation and dimensional analysis, we identified a new significant parameter - the centrifugal work number (CW). This parameter characterizes the ratio of centrifugal work to gas enthalpy in the rotating channel and plays a crucial role in measuring the compressibility of fluids within the rotating channel. Additionally, we utilized large eddy simulation(LES) to validate the impact of the centrifugal work ratio on the flow state of the rotating channel, thus enhancing the similarity theory of rotating channel compressible flow.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

K-VIL: Keypoints-based Visual Imitation Learning

Visual imitation learning provides efficient and intuitive solutions for robotic systems to acquire novel manipulation skills. However, simultaneously learning geometric task constraints and control policies from visual inputs alone remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose an approach for keypoint-based visual imitation (K-VIL) that automatically extracts sparse, object-centric, and embodiment-independent task representations from a small number of human demonstration videos. The task representation is composed of keypoint-based geometric constraints on principal manifolds, their associated local frames, and the movement primitives that are then needed for the task execution. Our approach is capable of extracting such task representations from a single demonstration video, and of incrementally updating them when new demonstrations become available. To reproduce manipulation skills using the learned set of prioritized geometric constraints in novel scenes, we introduce a novel keypoint-based admittance controller. We evaluate our approach in several real-world applications, showcasing its ability to deal with cluttered scenes, viewpoint mismatch, new instances of categorical objects, and large object pose and shape variations, as well as its efficiency and robustness in both one-shot and few-shot imitation learning settings. Videos and source code are available at https://sites.google.com/view/k-vil.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Rapid online solution of inverse heat transfer problem by ANN-based extended Kalman smoothing algorithm

Digital twin is a modern technology for many advanced applications. To construct a digital twin of a thermal system, it is required to make online estimations of unknown time-varying boundary conditions from sensor measured data, which needs to solve inverse heat transfer problems (IHTPs). However, a fast and accurate solution is challenging since the measured data is normally contaminated with noise and the traditional method to solve IHTP involves significant amount of calculations. Therefore, in this work, a rapid yet robust inversion algorithm called ANN-based extended Kalman smoothing algorithm is developed to realize the online prediction of desired parameter based on the measurements. The fast prediction is realized by replacing the conventional CFD-based state transfer models in extended Kalman smoothing algorithm with pre-trained ANN. Then, a two-dimensional internal convective heat transfer problem was employed as the case study to test the algorithm. The results have proved that the proposed algorithm is a computational-light and robust approach for solving IHTPs. The proposed algorithm can achieve estimation of unknown boundary conditions with a dimensionless average error of 0.0580 under noisy temperature measurement with a standard deviation of 10 K with a drastic reduction of computational cost compared to the conventional approach. Moreover, the effects of training data, location of sensor, future time step selection on the performance of prediction are investigated.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2022

Temperature and Velocity Characteristics of Rotating Turbulent Boundary Layers Under Non-Isothermal Conditions

This paper describes an experimental investigation, by means of hot-wire anemometry, of the characteristics of velocity and temperature in a rotating turbulent boundary layer under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. The ranges of experimental parameters are: Reynolds number from 10000 to 25000, rotational speed from 0 to 150 rpm, and y+ from 1.8 to 100. The relative temperature difference is held constant at 0.1. Detailed velocity and temperature distributions in the boundary layer are measured in the rotating state, and a new criterion for boundary layer segmentation under rotation is proposed. The applicability of boundary layer theory under the rotating state is extended. The influence of Coriolis force and buoyancy on the velocity and temperature distributions in the turbulent boundary layers are analyzed. Coriolis force is found to play an important role in the behavior of the boundary layer under rotation, as it shifts the velocity and temperature boundary layers. Under isothermal conditions, such effects can be classified according to the dominant force: viscous, Coriolis, or inertial. Under non-isothermal conditions, buoyancy occurs. The buoyancy induced by the Coriolis force suppresses the effect of the Coriolis force, and the suppression effect increases with temperature difference. The variation of turbulent Prandtl number Prt under rotation is also obtained.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2021

Construction method for general phenomenological RANS turbulence model

This paper proposes a phenomenological Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) calculation model based on physical constraints. In this model part of the source terms in the e equation was replaced with the deep learning model, using the standard k-e model as a template. The simulation results of this model achieved a high error reduction of 51.7 % compared to the standard k-e model. To improve the adaptability and accuracy compared to the convergence of the abnormal flow regime, the coordinate technology proposed in this study was used in the modelling process. For the training data, the k-field and e-field were automatically corrected using this approach when the flow state deviated from the theoretical assumption. Based on the coordinate technology, a deep learning model for the source term of the equation was built, and the simulation error was reduced by 6.2 % compared to the uncoordinated one. From the results, the proposed coordinate technology can effectively be adapted to the underdeveloped flow state and assist in the more accurately modelling of the phenomenological RANS calculation model under a complex flow state.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2019

Experimental investigation of turbulent flow in a two-pass channel with different U-turn

In this paper, the TR-PIV method is used to study the internal flow field characteristics in U-shaped channels. The Reynolds number, based on the square cross section channel hydraulic diameter is 8888,13333 and 17777. Mean flow, Reynolds stress and POD are taken into consideration to investigate the flow characteristic with three different turning sections. Through analysis, a series of important conclusions have been drawn. For the main flow, the structure of turning sections has obvious influence on the characteristics of flow field. The size and number of vortices in the corner area are significantly reduced, because the increase in Reynolds number makes the influx impact stronger. It can be seen from the Reynolds stress distribution which is obviously different in different turning sections that the pulsation caused by the mixing of the main flow and the vortex is obviously stronger than that at the boundary. The flow at the turning section is complex, the distribution of the proportion of turbulent kinetic energy in the low-order mode is relatively gentle, and there is an obvious wavy structure at the turning section of the inner circle and outer circular passage, which matches the velocity field from the POD.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2018

MES-P: an Emotional Tonal Speech Dataset in Mandarin Chinese with Distal and Proximal Labels

Emotion shapes all aspects of our interpersonal and intellectual experiences. Its automatic analysis has there-fore many applications, e.g., human-machine interface. In this paper, we propose an emotional tonal speech dataset, namely Mandarin Chinese Emotional Speech Dataset - Portrayed (MES-P), with both distal and proximal labels. In contrast with state of the art emotional speech datasets which are only focused on perceived emotions, the proposed MES-P dataset includes not only perceived emotions with their proximal labels but also intended emotions with distal labels, thereby making it possible to study human emotional intelligence, i.e. people emotion expression ability and their skill of understanding emotions, thus explicitly accounting for perception differences between intended and perceived emotions in speech signals and enabling studies of emotional misunderstandings which often occur in real life. Furthermore, the proposed MES-P dataset also captures a main feature of tonal languages, i.e., tonal variations, and provides recorded emotional speech samples whose tonal variations match the tonal distribution in real life Mandarin Chinese. Besides, the proposed MES-P dataset features emotion intensity variations as well, and includes both moderate and intense versions of recordings for joy, anger, and sadness in addition to neutral speech. Ratings of the collected speech samples are made in valence-arousal space through continuous coordinate locations, resulting in an emotional distribution pattern in 2D VA space. The consistency between the speakers' emotional intentions and the listeners' perceptions is also studied using Cohen's Kappa coefficients. Finally, we also carry out extensive experiments using a baseline on MES-P for automatic emotion recognition and compare the results with human emotion intelligence.

cs.SD↗

arXiv2018

Contribution of Glottal Waveform in Speech Emotion: A Comparative Pairwise Investigation

In this work, we investigated the contribution of the glottal waveform in human vocal emotion expressing. Seven emotional states including moderate and intense versions of three emotional families as anger, joy, and sadness, plus a neutral state are considered, with speech samples in Mandarin Chinese. The glottal waveform extracted from speech samples of different emotion states are first analyzed in both time domain and frequency domain to discover their differences. Comparative emotion classifications are then taken out based on features extracted from original whole speech signal and only glottal wave signal. In experiments of generation of a performance-driven hierarchical classifier architecture, and pairwise classification on individual emotional states, the low difference between accuracies obtained from speech signal and glottal signal proved that a majority of emotional cues in speech could be conveyed through glottal waveform. The best distinguishable emotional pair by glottal waveform is intense anger against moderate sadness, with the accuracy of 92.45%. It is also concluded in this work that glottal waveform represent better valence cues than arousal cues of emotion.

cs.SD↗